National Lottery funds are 'vital' to projects in Bolton

Between January 1 and June 30, 44 grants were issued throughout the borough.

The largest grant was worth £185,254 and was awarded to Family Action on March 18 for a project to provide buddying support to reduce social isolation and improve mental health and wellbeing for adults with moderate to severe mental health issues.

Another charity to benefit is Backup North West, a charity that works with young homeless people in Bolton.

It received £280,046 last year for their "Chances Wellbeing" project, which works with its service users to help them with their mental health.

Maura Jackson, CEO at Backup North West, said: “It’s vital. It’s absolutely vital.

“Without it we would have lost services for people.

“It has helped pay for one-to-one work with the young people. Intervention roles done to help stop the downward spiral.

A resident and a worker at Backup North West using music sessions to manage well being - funded by the National Lottery

“Mental health and homelessness are intertwined at the best of times, but it got worse during the pandemic.

“National Lottery funding brings money into the town where it isn’t otherwise available in Bolton. It supports and underpins organisations across the voluntary sector.

“It also allows us to develop new models of working and gives us time to look for other ways of funding."

Bolton has received more than £100m in National Lottery funding since its inception in 1994.

By far the largest single grant in Bolton in that time was awarded in 1997 to Bolton Council, which funded the building of Bolton Area. The grant was worth £11,682,689.

Bolton Arena (Image: Bolton Arena)

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The £108,179,950 received from the National Lottery places Bolton seventh in the list of the most money received in the North West.

Manchester has received by far the most in region – £994,585,401 - more than doubling second placed Liverpool which received £470,767,564.

All the money that is donated to project by the National Lottery is funded by ticket sales and unclaimed prizes.

In the year ending March 31, 2022, more than £8bn worth of tickets have been sold, of which almost a quarter went to various good causes across the UK.

A spokesperson for Solitaired.com, who compiled the data from multiple publicly accessible sources including from the government and the Gambling Commission, said: "If you ever lost a winning lottery ticket, there is comfort in knowing that your prize would have gone to a good cause."